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Busy Week

November 15, 2018

Hello everybody out
there in farm country. This radio
commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife
America, and Renewable Fuels Association.
They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and
prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

Last week was really busy. Three
days at the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention in Kansas
City. If you listen to farm radio, your
broadcaster was probably there. I’ve
been going for almost 40 years.

After Kansas City, I went to our farm.
Harvest is all in the bin. After
a whole year of work, and thousands of dollars spent, watching that golden corn
streaming in is so exciting.

The day harvest is done, we have to go to work on next year’s
crop. Be assured we have soil tests on
our fields. The tests will tell us how
much phosphate or potash must be applied.
Does the field need lime? We all
know that we have to eat the right food to be healthy. It is the same with crops. Feed the crop the right diet to make it
produce a big yield. It is the same with
our pigs. If you are going to “bring
home the bacon,” feed them right.

Most of the people in our county live in the city – so far removed from
the farm. We need better communication
back and forth. We’re seeing that
division in politics today.

Besides the corn and soybeans that we raise, we have baby pigs born
every day. It’s cold out in
Illinois. As for the mother sows, when
they get close to the farrowing they must be brought into the barn which is
heated. We want the mothers to be
comfortable and their babies safe. We
have all of these farm experts that think they know everything. The animal rights organizations are telling
us how to care for our animals – pigs, cows, chickens, everything. What do they know? Not much.
Farmers and ranchers have a powerful incentive to provide the best of
care. Animals that are not healthy and
happy will not gain weight and thrive as they should. Bad farmers lose money. We need to make money to stay in
business. It’s as simple as that.

I wanted to say a little bit about the scorching fires burning down
more than 200,000 acres in California and killing more than 40 people. We don’t know how many more will be found
burned to death. We wouldn’t have to
accept such devastation if we had better forest management. We need to manage our forests better. Over the years, especially in California,
environmental groups have pushed through all kinds of restrictive laws.

Trees die from drought. They are
not removed. They dry and are ideal for
firewood. We could thin the forests if
lumber companies were allowed to harvest the lumber. But NO – that might be bad for endangered
species.

Hopefully, these deadly fires will revive some common sense forest
management.